CBC Bearings and Power Transmission have supplied bearing plummer block housing units to Australian industry for over 50 years. Recent technological developments from our supplier Dodge Baldor has lead to the development of Dodge Bearing Plummer Blocks, ISN series. This new design features a patented locking method that reduces fitting time, eliminates the need for special tooling and excludes contaminates.

CBC was engaged to put forward potential upgrades for a problem kiln fan application for a customer in the timber industry.

This became a major issue, as the ongoing need to adjust the Toroidal Roller Bearings off set of the inner to outer ring to allow for thermal shaft expansion requires time-consuming attention to detail. This problem is accentuated by the fact that varying temperature and environment conditions in this area of the plant affect the stability of the mounting and surrounding structure. Confined space issues added further difficulty. With the current arrangement this ongoing maintenance was necessary to prevent potential premature failure of the bearing. The Dodge Bearing (ISN series) is specifically designed with a patented locking method to reduce these maintenance issues. 

The Proposed CBC Solution

The CBC Engineering team put forward a design that utilised 1 only Dodge Bearing, ISN Plummer Block unit. For further information on this product, Click Below.

The design proposed by CBC involved replacing the two Plummer Blocks with one Dodge Bearing ISN unit simplifying maintenance and reducing frictional drag resulting in less power drawn from the motor. The Dodge bearing is also a one piece design that does not require disassembly for installation, preventing contamination ingress during installation.

The CBC design involved a Falk Lifelign® Gear Coupling and spacer assembly that provided the required axial float, eliminating stress to any of the drive components. 

The customer’s maintenance team noted the simplicity of installation of the Dodge bearing and the associated time and cost saving. A trial period of the arrangement was independently monitored and the upgrade has exceeded all previous performance levels.

Costing comparisons analysed, compiled, and supplied by the customer showed higher product costs were more than offset by lower labour costs for replacement. This is shown in the table below.

The improvements achieved will be of great ongoing benefit to the timber mill, reducing power costs, improving production productivity, and increasing maintenance staff time benefit. The environment will also benefit via reduced CO2 emissions.

CBC’s product range offers our customer significant opportunities to reduce, not only increasingly costly power bills, but also greenhouse gas emissions penalties. For information on upgrading, redesignin,g or diagnosing problem drives, contact CBC technical services.